Meeting between Mr. Yukio Edano, Chief Cabinet Secretary, and Mr. Omurbek Babanov, First Vice Prime-Minister of the Kyrgyz Republic

August 1, 2011
Japanese

Today (on Monday, August 1), Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano held a meeting with H.E. Mr. Omurbek Babanov, First Vice Prime-Minister of the Kyrgyz Republic, who is visiting Japan. The outline of the meeting is as follows.

At the start of the meeting, Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano expressed his sincere gratitude to the Kyrgyz Republic for its support of Japan in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake in the form of messages of sympathy, supplies of goods and materials and monetary donations. In reply, First Vice Prime-Minister Babanov once again offered his condolences, and also conveyed his deep gratitude to Japan for its consistent support of Kyrgyz nation-building efforts towards democratization and constructing a market economy over the 20 years since the country gained its independence.
Both sides agreed that it is important to further strengthen the bilateral relationship between Japan and the Kyrgyz Republic even further in many areas including in the political, economic and cultural spheres. In particular, First Vice Prime-Minister Babanov expressed his strong hopes for an expansion of Japan’s investment in the Kyrgyz Republic.
First Vice Prime-Minister Babanov also noted that the most important issue for the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic is to conduct the presidential election scheduled to take place in October of this year in a free and democratic manner. In reply, Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano again emphasized Japan’s basic stance that it will continuously support democratization efforts of the Kyrgyz Republic, and he expressed his strong expectation that the upcoming presidential election would be conducted smoothly and peacefully.

(*This is a provisional translation. The above date denotes the date of the issue of the original press release in Japanese.)

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